Well, I've never been to Pennsylvania, but I grew up in Michigan and still get back there a few times a year, so I can recommend lots of things there:
Mackinaw Island - you can't take your RV there, as there are no motor vehicles on the island, but you can take your bicycle. There are campgrounds nearby on both the lower & upper peninsulas - I particularly like Straits State Park. The buffet lunch at the Grand Hotel is wonderful (and the ticket also allows you access to the hotel's front porch which runs the full length of the hotel). The horse-drawn carriage tours of the island are great - the drivers are island residents.
Traverse City area - Traverse City isn't a large town, and you can use it as a base to explore the surrounding area - Sleeping Bear Dunes to the west, Mission Point to the north, or follow the lakeshore up to Petosky where there's a nice state park.
Hoeft State Park - This state park is on Lake Huron and has a nice campground - I've been several times. Drive into Rogers City for ice cream next to the theater, or ride your bike - there's a paved path into town.
Ausable River - if you feel like a bit of canoeing, you can do day trips on several rivers in the northern lower peninsula. I like the Ausable River, but the Rifle river is also nice. I recall canoeing on a river north of Grand Rapids as well, but don't recall which one.
Hartwick Pines State Park - this has the last bit of original forest from before Michigan was completely logged back in the 1800's.
Sault Ste Marie - you can visit the Soo Locks & watch the big boats go through. Even better, there's a campground right on the water a couple miles away (Aune-Osborne Campground) where you can watch the boats go by right from your campsite. On the other hand, if you're a light sleeper, they might keep you up at night - you can definitely hear the engines as they go by and the locks run 24 hours a day. You can call the locks visitor center to find out when boats are scheduled to go through (and which ones), after hours they have a recording set up to provide that info.
Pictured Rocks - take a boat tour out of Munising to see these.
Keewenaw Peninsula - there's a lot to see in this area - back in the mid to late 1800's this area produced the majority of the nations copper, and there are a lot of remnants of that mining activity in the area. The Quincy Mine in Hancock has some nice exhibits and includes an underground tour. Calumet is the center of the Keewenaw National Historic Park and has a great museum, plus the historic Calumet Theater. If you're more of a rock hound, there's a mineralogical museum on the Michigan Tech campus in Houghton that's worth a visit. It's also worth driving up to Copper Harbor to see the view from Brockway Mountain Drive, and there's Fort Wilkins State Park nearby that includes the old army fort from the 1800s.
Porcupine Mountains State Park is scenic and you can do a lot of hiking up there. Nearby is the Black River which has trails on both sides of the river from which you can see several waterfalls. There's a National Forest campground there.
And if you're that far west in the UP, you might as well cross over into Wisconsin and go visit the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. I took my RV over to Madeline Island last fall and stayed for a couple days. The boat tours out of Bayfield are worth it.
If you're going to be visiting state parks in Michigan, you ought to get the annual pass - it's $32, but since day passes run $9 for non-residents, after 3 days you're better off with the annual pass.
That's all for now. I may come back tomorrow and post some more.
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2003 Roadtrek 190 Popular
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